As many students at Grand Valley State University may have already noticed, construction on the new Mary Idema Pew Library continues despite the snowy weather.

Albeit the setback of bad weather in the summer, Scott Veine, project Manager for the Pioneer Construction Company, said his crews are working hard to meet the expected fall 2013 completion date for the Mary Idema Pew Library Learning and Information Commons, as well as the deadline for the last piece of steel ceremony, which is tentatively set for the beginning of April.

“We are a little behind schedule, but it is mainly due to weather we encountered in late May and June,” Veine said. “We are catching up and we will still meet our turnover rate.”

James Moyer, assistant vice president of Facilities Planning and manager of the project, said construction is going well and that the workers have not run into any problems that cannot be resolved.

Moyer said the foundation of the library is already complete and the Automated Storage Retrieval System (ASRS) has been placed in the basement. The utility tunnel and the connector tunnel from the concourse level of the library to the basement level of Kirkhof are also complete, and pipe work is currently underway.

From a sustainability approach, Veine said the project is going well.

“The soil erosion and sediment control, which keeps the soil on the site and off from campus, is all in place and working well,” he said. “We have started to do material analysis and see how each material will meet the necessary criteria. Lastly, the Michigan Occupational Safety and Health Association employees have been on the site, including the director, who has been on the site twice.”

Veine said the next step in the process is to build up, adding that the concrete floors are ready to be poured as long as the weather holds up. No matter what type of weather approaches, Moyer said work will continue all year long.

“Weather just slows us down, it doesn’t make us stop,” Veine said. “The only time we stop is when we have high winds because the crane won’t work and the crane is a critical part of the project right now.”

Veine said keeping the project going is very important to both him and his crew, and he understands the importance of the library to GVSU. He said the library is one of the best construction projects he has been involved in, and his crew members are proud to be working on it.

“The library has a huge impact on our company from an economic standpoint and it has a tremendous impact on one of our top clients,” he said. “We are not building it for Thomas Haas or facilities management — we’re building it for you, the students.”

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